


Four Memories

by seaweedredandbrown



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: (mentioned) - Freeform, Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Memories, Gen, Memories, One-Shot, Post-Movie, Written for the Pacific Rim Secret Santa 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 23:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8943532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaweedredandbrown/pseuds/seaweedredandbrown
Summary: Mako thinks of remembering as a sacred duty.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vongchild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vongchild/gifts).



Mako closes her eyes, inhales deeply to ground herself - and _remembers_. 

A summer afternoon, a long time ago. The weather is warm and the day seems neverending. She's young, so very young. The details are fuzzy but she remembers the light, low and golden, chasing shadows all the way to the most remote corners of the house. 

Her father is sitting on the engawa, fanning himself. He has taken a break from the forge and her mother has brought him some iced tea. They’re drinking and chatting together - something about the garden or maybe the weather. 

Mako remembers running to them, a broken toy in hand. She’s bawling: that doll was her favourite. Her parents try to console her to no avail. Her father makes funny faces as her mother leaves with the limbless figurine. Mako can’t stop crying. She loved that doll so much and now it’s gone. It’s her fault, too. She pulled too strongly on the plastic arm, and now… 

No grimace from her father can ever replace the joy of playing with her baby doll. She wails for a long time - or at least it seems like a long time, like an eternity of snot and weepy eyes, but it can’t have been more than a few minutes, really. Maybe not even one. 

Her father kindly wipes away her tears and starts illustrating stories with his hands as he holds her in his lap. 

Soon her mother returns and softly loosens the pink bow holding her ponytail. A hairbrush gently caresses her scalp. Her mother untangles the messy strands, one by one, slowly, softly. 

For one peaceful moment, there is no more tears and no more broken doll; only the touch on her head, her mother’s low humming, the smell of homemade iced tea, the gleam in her father’s eyes. 

And this too is a form of eternity. Time stands still in the warm glow of the summer afternoon. She remembers wishing to stay like this forever, safe and nestled in her parents’ love - and, in a way, a part of her is forever sitting on that engawa, letting grief wash over her, one caress of the hairbrush at a time. 

Golden warmth pushes another scene onto the stage of Mako’s mind.

She’s a little older now, eleven or maybe twelve. She’s sitting on the couch in Tamsin’s small apartment, reading a children’s book. One page in Japanese, one page in English; the charming little tale of a farmer looking for her cow. Outside snow is falling in soft little flakes that whiten the sidewalks and the roofs. 

A song plays on the radio, high-pitched voices in a choir. Mako has never heard anything of the kind before. 

She looks up to Sensei, who’s playing cards with Tamsin on the living room table. Her lips are curled into the bud of a smile - Mako can see it clearly in her mind’s eye, the way her mouth widens ever so slowly as she realises she’s about to win that round. 

“Sensei,” Mako asks then stops to run the sentence through her head before saying it out loud, “what is this sound?”

“Song,” Sensei corrects, looking away from the cards. “What is this song?” 

“What is this song?” Mako repeats. 

She commits the word to memory. _Song._

“It’s a… Tamsin, how would you explain what a carol is?” 

Carol, Mako remembers thinking, is a word she does not know at all. It has that ‘r’ sound she hasn’t quite mastered. Bummer. 

“A carol?” Tamsin puts her cards face down. “Carols are songs we sing in winter to celebrate Christmas.” 

Mako nods. She knows what Christmas is although she can’t pronounce the word quite right yet. She remembers - and it’s funny how memory works: she remembers _remembering_. 

Images flicker before her eyes: her parents’ faces, a plate of fried chicken from the neighbour, the twinkle of fairy lights in the street. A pang of sadness hits her as the grey of rubbles drowns the blue of kaiju blood; the bright red of her shoes, the firm grasp of varnished leather in her hand; the-

“Mako?”

Sensei’s voice interrupts the flow of memories. Her cheeks are wet: she was crying.

“Mako,” Tamsin asks, now sat next to her, “would you like to sing a carol with us?”

“I don’t know,” she says, swallowing back her tears, “I don’t know the ca-caro-carols, Tamsin-san.”

“We’ll teach you one,” Sensei says, reaching out for the computer. 

“Away in a manger?” Tamsin suggests, “or maybe We Three Kings? Jingle Bells?” 

The memory dissolves in bubbles of high-pitched notes and laughters. Which one did they teach her first, Mako can’t say anymore; she ended up trying to learn every single one she could find and there were a **lot** of them on the internet. 

But laughter and singing, now that reminds her of Aussie drinking songs, which immediately call to mind-

“Oi! Oi, Mako, put me down! You're a cool chick—just… Mako! Mako, for fuck’s sake, put me down!”

She’s never putting him down. Chuck can jerk and yank all he wants, he’s never breaking free. They’re seventeen and “training” for the Academy entrance examination. He has more muscle mass but she can beat him hand-to-hand any day. 

He challenged her; she was too happy to oblige. 

They’re children having a bit of fun, their laughter echoing loudly in the Shatterdome corridor. PPDC personnel pass them by, laughing or snapping pictures.

Sensei and Ranger Hansen are discussing some matters of importance in the former’s office. In a few minutes they will come out, ever so slightly dishevelled, and scold them for playing around in time of war. 

Chuck will jump from Mako’s shoulders and try to protest. She will bow her head and apologise but for now she’s looking up - he’s trying to pull her hair and pick at her eyes. Max is happily barking along in the background. 

These are their last days of carefree innocence, if they’ve ever had any. Soon they will join the ranks of hopeful cadets going through the gruesome Academy training. There, they will make friends that they will see die and die and die again in the incessant fight against the beasts rising from the sea. Friends will die and monsters will rise, again and again and again, until-

\- the memories flutter, her breath quickens, she needs to **focus** , to grab one, any one, whichever comes first -

She’s standing in front of two empty coffins being lowered to the ground. This memory is very recent yet it is the blurriest of them all. She knows she’s not alone but all she can see is the dark of the wood merging with the dark of the earth. 

She remembers praying, with all her soul, with all her heart, that this would be the last time; that Chuck and Sensei would be the last victims of the Kaiju, the last war heroes, the last Jaeger pilots ever to fall for the sake of humanity. 

They were not, unfortunately. 

Mako opens her eyes, pushing the flow of memories away with a deep breath and finishes to pay her respects. Incense is still burning softly, sweet-scented wisps of smoke curling above the row of portraits on the shrine. 

Her mother reading in the garden, lost in her book, unaware of the picture being taken. (The corners are all creased: before she eventually resolved to get it framed, the photograph travelled in her wallet.)

Her father looking up from the anvil, drops of sweat pearling on his forehead. (There’s a tear on the right side that has been painstakingly taped up with a lot of care.)

Luna in an oversized sweater, smiling softly in some London street, autumn leaves falling behind her. (Mako never met her, but she has heard so much about her that she could not think for one second of not including her.)

Tamsin and her bright red hair, saluting in her RAF uniform. (She’s looking young and healthy, standing tall and proud of her blossoming career.)

Sensei, elbows deep in a cooking bowl, white flour and brown sugar spread all over his apron. (The picture is a little blurry and not very well lit. Mako took it herself. She was twelve.)

Chuck’s official post-graduation portrait, in full pilot gear, a smug on his face and Max resting at his feet. (Not his best shot and yet exactly how he would have liked to be remembered, she thinks: young, defiant and full of hope). 

The embers burn out and Mako feels Raleigh entering the room before he makes his presence known. He doesn’t need to say anything: her mind quietens on its own in his vicinity. 

She gets up and greets him with a smile. He nods back - he has his serious face on. 

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he says, handing her a tablet, “but Duke Pentecost has been seen in a refugees camp on the Manila coastline. Marshall Hansen said he might listen to you.” 

Duke. 

It’s been years since-

She chases the memories away. She needs to check those coordinates, arrange for a helicopter to take them there and brace herself. 

“Understood,” she answers, swiping through the grainy pictures of a young man among a makeshift shelter, “let us go and get him right away.”

Before leaving the room, she looks at the portraits one last time. Her family has always watched over her, each in their own way; she has made it her sacred duty to carry over their legacy and protect her remaining loved ones. 

To forget is dishonour, shame and cowardice.  
To remember is forging a legacy of her own; one that will last her lifetime and allow the deceased to live on in the hearts of all those it will touch. 

As she steps out of the room, a lone wreath of smoke follows her, the sweet scent now imbuing her hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading! Vongchild's prompt was "found family feels", I hope you enjoyed it.  
> I'd like to thank [@BAMFcoyotetango](bamfcoyotetango.tumblr.com) and [@yumimages](http://yumimages.tumblr.com/) for their help.  
> Since this was my first time writing any of these characters, feedback would be greatly appreciated. :3


End file.
